What Happens When Domain Names Expire?

Ever wonder what happens when a domain name expires? If the domain name registration, reservation, renewal and expiration process seems a little murky to you, you are not alone. The "expiration" process is particularly misunderstood (and complicated), and it is very helpful to know how it works, particularly when watching a parked domain, or one that is pending deletion, and determining whether to try and buy it from the domain owner, or put it on "back-order" with one of the registrars, or take some other action.

There is an entire industry that does nothing but try to exploit expiring domain names, and the process and nomenclature is explained in excellent detail at this site.

Here is a quick summary from the reference site (at least for .com/.net/.org/.info/.biz/.us. domains):

Generally speaking, once a domain expires, the owner has 1-75 days to renew it, and the costs associated with a renewal usually increase as the domain moves from Hold (Registrar-Hold) to RGP (Redemption Grace Period).

During the Hold and RGP stage, the DNS, e-mail and web services cease to work for the expired domain. The domain gets removed from the zone file and does not appear to resolve (cannot find server error is displayed in the browser).

Once a domain reaches the deletion stage in the cycle (also known as PendingDelete) it can no longer be renewed and is marked for deletion by the registry. There are approximately 35,000 domains that go through the PendingDelete cycle daily.

After the 5 day PendingDelete cycle (or if a registrar chooses to immediately delete a domain), a domain drops and once again becomes available for registration.

Here are some interesting facts about the domain drop cycle:

120,000 to 200,000 domains expire daily due to non-renewals. Many of these are renewed as soon as the registrant realizes that their e-mail or site no longer works.
25,500 to 60,000 domains drop (become available) daily as part of the regular drop cycle.
Approximately 1.5 million domains are registered and dropped daily as part of domain tasting.
The official drop time for .com/.net is between 11 AM and 2 PM Pacific time (domains are deleted in batches throughout this period).

Source: http://techknowledgyblog.squarespace.com/techknowledgy-blog/2012/1/10/what-happens-when-domain-names-expire.html

Free Domain Name services

Still that is an option to create a totally free website, blog or community forums and publish it on the web at absolutely no cost. However, unfortunately, many free website hosting providers still offer a long and very difficult to remember web address to their free site hosting users.
And that is the point where one can take advantage of free domain registration service that enables to get a free domain with a very short and very easy to remember extension and mask the terribly looking free web site address with a perfectly looking free domain web address.
In this article we provide the reviews of the best free domain name services and detailed descriptions of their main features. And thus we list the reviews of the top 5 free domain name providers according to the features and quality of the offered services and free domains:

1. FreeDomain.co.nr (free .co.nr domain)

1. Biz.nf (free .co.nf domain)

1. Co.cc (free .co.cc domain)

1. Dot.tk (free .tk domain)

1. Biz.ly (free .biz.ly domain)

And see the detailed reviews of best free domains below: 

Free Domains at .co.nr
FreeDomain.co.nr provides free domain registration service with a very short and easy to remember .co.nr extension. So that, their users get free domains like www.sitename.co.nr that can be used for any free web site, blog, forums, or other web page published on the web.FreeDomain.co.nr service works in form of URL redirection, so that they support meta tags, URL masking, path forwarding, your very own Favicon, Google Webmaster Tools, etc. However, free .co.nr domains do not support DNS changes and thus they are recommended mainly for beginners.FreeDomain.co.nr has been providing domain name free services since 2003, so you can probably rely on their service, and it seems they do not add forced ads to free web domains that they offer.

Free Domain at .co.nf
Biz.nf is a free web hosting provider that enables to register a free domain name with .co.nf extension (such as www.sitename.co.nf) and to host it at Biz.nf servers at absolutely no cost.Biz.nf provides a full featured free domain hosting service that includes both features for advanced users such as PHP hosting, MySQL, CGI, FTP support as well as free website builder tools such as easily installed WordPress blog and Joomla website, and more.Biz.nf has been in business since 2008, and they offer totally eco-friendly green hosting service that can help to save our planet ecology.

Free Domain Name at .co.cc
Co.cc lets Internet users to register free domains with .co.cc extension for personal (non-commercial) use, and they also sell .co.cc domains to businesses in bulk at a very low prices.In addition to free website domain registration Co.cc also provides mapping of .co.cc domains to Blogger, Window Live, Google Apps and Amazon Associates. Co.cc does support DNS changes and thus CNAME, A, MX, NS, and TXT records.Update: CO.CC is currently offline, and it seems they have completely closed down there services. If that’s the case, we’ll remove CO.CC soon.Co.cc has been offering free short domains since 2007, however, it seems they (and all their users) were banned by Google and other big guys several times..
Free Domain at .tk
Dot.tk is a Tokelau (small islands in Pacific Ocean) based company that provides free 2nd level domains with .TK extension, so that free free domain site looks like www.sitename.tk and that is the shortest free domain option available on the web.Dot.tk enables to register free domains and either redirect them to a website (domain forwarding), or they enable to use ones own name servers, i.e. the DNS changes are allowed. One can also pay for .tk domain and thus obtain the legal registrant rights (free domains do not provide registrant rights and the free site must receive at least 25 visitors in any 90-day period).Dot.tk guys have been providing free .tk domains since very 2001, however, we were reported their service/servers are a bit slow from time to time..

Free Domains at .biz.ly
Biz.ly free domain host provides a very short free domain with business meaning .biz.ly extension. Unlike the previous provider Biz.nf offers 3rd level free domains such as www.sitename.biz.ly that are registered and hosted at their servers at no additional cost.Apart from free .biz.ly domains they also provide free hosting services as well as free site builder and blog builder, and many pre-installed tools such as photo album, guestbook, hits counter, webrings, form mailer, site copier, etc.Biz.ly has been providing free domain names since 2002, and their service is quite simple and thus it is recommended for beginners.

Free Domain at .COM, .NET, .ORG, etc.And in case you do not mind to pay few dollars to host your web site with reliable and customer focused web hosting provider, you can get a free domain name with .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, or .us extension included with their website hosting plan. We’d suggest to check the following web hosts: